Rootless Trees
by SeungSeiRan
Summary: Free to roam and wander. Grow, learn, feel for the light. Oneshot collection. Various characters, OCs and AUs.
1. I

Ran is suffering from a severe case of writer's block. Adding to her current inability to focus on her multi-chaps, her laptop has also suffered a nervous breakdown and had to be sent to Silicon Valley rehab (she's updating from her Dad's PC :P). She is not sure what to make of this series except that it will be updated sporadically at best to treat said writer's block. She warns you that it is AU-like-woah! but thanks you nonetheless for reading. She also disclaims Tekken and its characters but would like to retain ownership of a certain two OCs in this fic.

* * *

_Amie come sit on my wall  
And read me the story of O  
And tell it like you still believe  
That the end of the century  
Brings a change for you and me_

- Amie, Damien Rice

* * *

12 o'clocks on Friday afternoons were the best thing about school. That was when they received their letters during English class, five minutes before the lunch-bell. She was second from the right in the middle row. Mr Lee started off from the front desk, a pair of myopic eyes straining behind silver wire-rimmed glasses as he pronounced each of their names in the unfamiliar foreign symbols adorning each letterhead.

_'How's my favourite penpal doing? (Actually, my only penpal but my Dad says it's good to be nice to girls).' _

She had taken to reading during recess time, her brown eyes fixed on the sheet propped on her lap, gleaming when a certain word or phrase popped up in the midst of the streams of painstakingly printed alphabets. His writing was bigger than hers and less spaced out. The lines in the t's sloped downwards precariously, the dots faint specks above the i's.

_'I wasn't feeling very well yesterday. I ate a whole bowl of Cheerios and threw it all up over the carpet. You could see the circles in the puke.' _

"What're Cheerios?" she asked, a few skips ahead of her old _Haraboji_, her grandfather, as usual on the way back home after afternoon classes.

The old man, still tall and strong as an ox from years of dedication to his craft, frowned in disapproval at the sound of an alien accent in that one spoken word. "American food, sounds like. Not good for you."

There had been a chocolate-chip cookie rattling about in her lunch-bag, contrasting oddly with the warm white rice and silver rounds of fish in the _gimbap_ along with the tangy orange dollop of _kimchi _placed carefully in a plastic container to avoid a mess. _Boji _was especially a stickler for tradition, turning up his hooked nose at the glaring eyesores of fast-food chain-stores mushrooming rapidly over the course of the city. She made sure not to mention the cookie. If he knew, Mama would have to bear the brunt of his lectures, amusing as she often found them.

Along the side-walk was a row of miniature cement columns rising just up to the bottom of her knees. She stepped onto one, the hopped onto the next, careful not to lose balance while keeping her pace steady.

"_Boji_?"

"Careful there. You've already grazed your knee on the stairs..."

"When will I grow taller?"

_'Tomorrow, I have to go shopping with my parents for new pyjamas because I outgrew my old ones. Yuck.'_

"When you grow older, of course."

"Yie-Jie's birthday is in August and she's still taller than me."

"Well, March is only a few months away. You have plenty of time to catch up until your next birthday."

With a quick breath, she jumped off her pedestal and landed back on ground-level. "I don't think I can wait that long"

"Your Dad was small too, when he was six."

"Ah?"

"Yes." A small smile appeared on the older weathered face. "But things change. People grow. In many different ways."

"How?"

They rounded the corner, passing the green leafy persimmon tree hanging over someone's brick wall. One of her father's favorite stories to tell was about how Mama had mistaken the fruits hanging in the tree for miniature pumpkins. He would burst out laughing at the end of it and her mother would grumble slightly, which in itself was something quite rare.

"How many ways do people grow, _Boji_?"

"They grow taller, get stronger, smarter, all kinds of ways. They learn from where they went wrong and set themselves right. Like a supple young tree."

Having said so, he pulled out a tiny wooden pipe from his pocket and aimed it straight at the plumpest of the orange fruit. A thin needle shot out from one hollow end and cut through the ebony-green stalk, causing it to plummet right into her awaiting hands.

"Awesome!" she grinned, cupping her palms around the thick skin. "Can I have a go with that?"

"As I said before, you have plenty of time ahead of you."

To her disappointment, he pocketed the blowgun once again with a discreet smile on his face.

* * *

_'We learned about the Great Wall of China today in History. Have you heard of it yet?'_

Yes, she had. They called it a different name here but it was just the same. Her penpal liked flying kites and riding trains. He did _not _like the giant old sheepdog next door whom he was convinced (she'd had to look up that word) would try to swallow him whole if it got the chance. They both liked rainstorms and summer vacations. They both hated leeks and boring Math classes. His birthday was a few days ahead of hers, on the twenty-seventh. Hers was on the thirtieth. Just five more months and she would be able to reach the highest bars on the jungle-gym without needing a leg up.

_'I heard the weatherman say that it's going to snow tomorrow. I hope so. That means we might have no school.'_

She had seen a picture of snow in a picture-book about a red-nosed reindeer her grandmother had sent over for Christmas. It was white, glittery and looked like pieces of clouds. Would that mean the sky was really falling like that story about the silly little chicken who thought so? She thought about asking him about it in the next letter she wrote until she remembered that boys could be cruel and she didn't want him to think she was a silly chicken too because she wasn't, honestly, and it was just that the world seemed so much bigger when someone was so far away like he was, but she was learning as quickly as she could, really.

_'Do you know what snow also means? Hot chocolate with whipped cream and marshmallows! Yummy!!'_

So snow must have many different meanings where he was from. Just like full moons meant fireworks at night with matching rice cakes for dessert soon afterwards. She would often eat and eat until she couldn't budge an inch and had to be carried back to her room when she fell asleep on the rug with her mouth open. That was something she could write about. Except the part about leaving her mouth wide open. Mama had taken a picture of her like that and sent it to _Appa_, her Dad, while he was somewhere across the country training his mind and body to become stronger for their sake. The photo was quite embarrassing but at least it would bring a smile to his face, she hoped.

The days felt quite empty with one less person in the house. She could even sense it in the wood on the _dojang_ floor as it remained hard and firm beneath her touch, dead without the spring of high-flying kicks and jumps that normally reverberated through leaf-thin walls.

There were still the letters though. Letters to a friend she had yet to meet on the other side of the world. She would begin with the same two words that had started it all.

_'Dear Aaron,'..._

_

* * *

_

_'Good news! It did snow! I stayed at home today and helped Mum make fruit cookies. They're just like regular cookies except with fruit juice instead of sugar so it's almost as good as eating a fruit salad (and less troublesome than making me eat an apple, Mum says). The planes can't fly today because the runways are all frozen over. That means Dad's stuck in Dublin today. I feel sorry for him because he didn't sound too happy about that on the phone...'_

"Mama, where's Dublin?"

"In Ireland."

They were sorting through pictures on the bedroom floor. _Boji _could be heard snoring from the couch in the den where he'd sat down two hours ago to sort through a pile of 'damn bills'. A lot of the old photographs were of her when she was a baby, her first smile, her first tooth, her first step, all the way to her first bike.

"What're you gonna do with all of these?"

"I'm putting them in an album." Shaking a few loose strands of earth-brown hair from her eyes, her Mama picked up one of her in nothing but a fluffy yellow towel and grinned. "What do you think? Good enough for future blackmail?"

"I'll tell _Boji_ about the cookies and candy bars."

"... Okay, you got me this time."

Inside the comfort of their own home, they could speak anyhow they liked. Earlier in the morning, she had listened to Mama's slow, careful enunciation in the local dialect and remembered how she'd helped with some of the more difficult words. The lady at the flower-shop had bent down, stroked her straight black hair and told her how cute she looked for a 'half-and-half' child. Mama had started suddenly, her cheeks stained red in anger and then _Boji _gave the woman a stern look before leading them both out of the shop. She had known better than to say anything more on that.

"Are you okay, Mama?"

She looked up at her quizzically. "Yes, I'm fine. What makes you ask that?"

"You cut a hole right through here." She pointed at the empty space where the picture should have gone. "Are you still thinking about that flower lady?"

"Sunny..."

"I'm fine, really. Nothing's bothering me, see?"

And she smiled her biggest smile, hoping she could chase these storm clouds away.

Mama just laughed and pulled her into a tight hug. It must have lasted forever, even if it was only for a few moments. When the grip loosened, she asked her when _Appa _would be coming home and how long that would take.

"He said he'd come home tomorrow."

"Has he found himself yet? How do you go looking for yourself when you're with you all the time?"

"The heart is like a compass, love. It points to wherever it hears a call. And in some people, their compass ends up broken or perhaps they weren't made whole to begin with, so their arrows keep spinning around in no direction."

Trailing off, she drew another photo from the pack. "Here he is."

Sunny squinted, unable to comprehend the silent image. "That's _Appa_?"

"Mm-hm."

"He looks different."

"Probably because he has more reasons to smile now." She felt a warm cheek nuzzle against hers. "I know I do."

"_Boji _says he used to have a lot of girlfriends before you. Didn't you care about that?"

"A little... actually, very much."

"Then why'd you choose him?"

"To be fair, I had a boyfriend too."

"What was _he _like?"

"He was smart, intelligent, funny, kind and handsome."

"It doesn't make a lot of sense..."

"I know. Fate has a funny way of dealing your cards. You'll understand better when you're older."

"... You and _Boji _are in this 'growing up' thing together, aren't you?"

* * *

_'Dear Sunny,_

_I'm glad your Dad is back. So is mine. We're going to have a lot of fun._

_The sheepdog doesn't want to eat me, I discovered. It only wanted to play and it's actually quite nice.'  
_

She was awake before the dawn broke and taking flying leaps to her parents' bedroom in her nightgown. It was too early for the light to be out but she wanted to be the first to see the sunrise. One last skip, hop and a jump took her from the floor to a surprised 'oof!' from the figure lying next to her mother in the bed.

"Anyeong haseyo!"

"What time is it?" he asked, his voice coming out in a throaty rasp.

"Time to go to the beach!"

Mama woke up slowly, her hair out of its usual braid and a smile that made her seem more goddess than human. "Hwoarang, you promised."

He didn't say much. But if the corners of his mouth were anything to go by, he didn't seem to mind. They'd both been home when he'd returned, fresh and more awake since the month and a half he'd been away. She'd told Aaron about him, his long hair and his light brown eyes (like hers), drawn him a picture when she'd run out of words and hoped that it did her father justice. On paper, he was a stick figure with one arm shorter than the other and crayon-colored hair.

But he was the real thing now and she didn't have to pretend his voice was a fleeting melody in the empty space because he was here, _right here_, and he wasn't going anywhere, so her fingers running through his hair as she sat astride on his strong broad shoulders wasn't just a dream.

"My bones hurt." He whispered, half to himself and half to her.

"You sound like _Boji_."

"Oh?" Their eyes met and he smiled again, for how many times since he'd been here now? "And what did Baek say about me this time?"

"That you were short when you were my age and that I couldn't get any worse than you."

"True on both of those. I'm an original after all."

She added a smirk to the total smile tally for the day. The sun was still barely a crack over the surface of the ocean, the waves small and restless. They stepped onto the sand and she watched a little hermit crab scuttle away beneath the sand. She followed the trail of prints it left behind until she was at the edge of the breaking foam in the water.

"Don't go too far. The sea might mistake you for a lost fish and swallow you up."

"I know. Mama tells me that too."

"Yep, she's one wise young woman."

"_Boji_ also tells me to never marry a boy like you. I forgot to tell you that."

"Hm." He joined her at the shore, quietly contemplating the patterns his toes made against the cold wet sand. "_That_ may be a point."

"But I'm not getting married."

"No, you have a long way to go until then." (All this talk about growing up was really beginning to annoy her). "Besides, he'd have to get past me, then Baek, then me again because I don't back down so easily..."

"_Appa_, you're going too near the big waves."

He backed off immediately and she picked up from where he'd left off. "And anyway, I don't know any boys. Except Joon and Lee from my class. And the paperboy. And Kai in the _dojang_. And Aaron."

"Oh yeah, Aaron the penpal. How's he doing?"

"He's not afraid of sheepdogs anymore."

"I had a friend who didn't like dogs much. Which was funny, considering his last name was - "

"You know, I was trying to explain to him what my real name meant. Why does 'Soon-Yi' have to mean 'this goddess'? I don't think I'm like _that_. It's too different for me."

She kicked at the foam swirling around her feet as it receded back into the sea, far as it could go.

"For the record, I didn't name you. Your mother did." The salty spray drew back the curtain of hair fringing the corners of his jaw as he crouched lower beside her. "And I like your name. It's a lot better than what mine means, trust me on that."

She slid a stray wisp of his between her fingers. "Your hair used to be red. How come it's not anymore?"

"I don't feel red anymore."

"Then what color do you feel like? Black is a very sad color to feel like."

"Not black. I feel..."

The first ray of light struck the strand between her fingers, dabbing in it shades which had yet to be discovered. "I feel like light. Colorless, but it's light. It still shines. It formless, sometimes it can't be seen, but that's what makes it beautiful."

"I know."

"I sometimes feel red, sometimes blue, maybe even black but as long as I'm still Hwoarang, it doesn't matter."

"I know. Like how I'm 'Soon-Yi' sometimes, but 'Sunny' all the time."

The hair slipped free from her hands. Instead, she felt his rougher palm on her shoulder. "I couldn't have put it better myself. That's perfect."

"I guess."

The waves rushed forward, only to crash into the tiniest drops of water around them.

"I'm happy to be home."

"I'm happy you're back."

"_Sarang hae_, Sunny."

"_Sarang hae_."

He kissed her forehead.

* * *

_'Dear Aaron,'_

"Julia, have you seen my reading-glasses?"

_'Mama seems to be really excited about talking to someone on the phone. She can't even hear my Grandpa looking for his glasses. He can see alright without them but he probably needs to them to read the papers. He can't make out anything on paper without them.'_

"Ah, has Sunny been drawing again?" Baek squinted at the pieces of paper tacked to the refrigerator. "Is that a red-haired monkey? And the gorilla's very nice too."

_'You know, I would be worried because I would have been thinking that she was talking to that old boyfriend of hers with blue eyes she sometimes mentions. But because my Dad's back, I'm not worried. She's happy and I'm very happy.'_

Hwoarang peered at the drawings over Baek's shoulder. "I'm glad you think so. Because that red-haired monkey's supposed to be me and apparently, the gorilla is you."

Baek made an indignant sound in his throat and Julia's peal of laughter softened the effect.

_'Is the snow really that cold in England?'_

Baek's unwitting gaze fell on the third drawing. "Someone get me my glasses before I mistake this one for something else too."

"That's Aaron. He drew it." Sunny piped up from the kitchen table.

_'Could you catch some and send it to me in a parcel please?'_

Hwoarang stared at the address on the envelope she stuffed the letter in. "Is that Aaron's full name?"

"Yeah. Why?"

He just smiled and ran over where Julia stood with the phone wedged between her hand and ear. He read out the name on the blank white paper and her eyes widened in surprise. Amidst the sudden chatter that picked up, Sunny watched them in wonder and Baek moaned about his long-forgotten glasses.

"Now where did I put them? Sunny, what in the world has possessed your parents at a time like this?"

"They must think Aaron's name is weird."

_'P.S. I really like your name. Aaron Fox, I think it sounds nice.'_

"I know, the world is getting smaller than we think! Hold on a sec, Hwoarang wants to talk to you."

"... Hey, Steve. It's nice to hear from you. And tell Aaron I have a friend waiting for him. Right here."

In the next few minutes, it seemed that the smiles were as contagious as ever.


	2. II

Hm, tired and not too fond of this. At least the WB is partly cured. Contains female OC so keep your Mary Sue radars on. You might want to refer 'Beginings' if you get a bit lost.

* * *

_Have I still got you to be my open door  
Have I still got you to be my sandy shore  
Have I still got you to cross my bridge in this storm  
Have I still got you to keep me warm_

- Grey Room, Damien Rice

* * *

Saturday morning's the night after Friday. Friday night's the last night of their lives. He was already dragging his jeans on, the low groan of a nearby truck being the only music echoing in his head. And there had been plenty of that the night before. Music, lots of it, track after track of The Verve, The Doors, The Smiths, almost anything with a 'the' with a capital 'T' attached before it to flag their importance. Unless you counted the outdated hippy-ish crap spouted by Bono and company.

Having plucked his shirt from where it had been tossed onto six hours ago by either him or her in their lust slash angst-ridden deliriums, he placed his steps carefully on the way to the inevitable awaiting the consequences. Cotton socks, warm against bare wood, his skin already cold from the loss of another set of bare limbs entangled in his own.

She was already awake when he entered, the weak light of a bleak day in late June highlighting the darker roots of her light brown hair. Standing by the window in a clingy white chemise with her eyes trained on the vapors rising up from a charcoal coffee mug, she cut a figure as melancholy as he felt. More clothed, yet just as vulnerable. He'd known her since secondary school, back when she was a friend who was a girl with soft cheeks and fawn eyes, someone he'd share a laugh with but never anything deeper. She waited on tables in the café across the street from the gym he trained in and they'd talked late last night about past mistakes and other unrelated happenings. The worst part was that he could remember each and every word he said along with each spoken thought from her mouth and how she tasted when he knew he could bear his memories no longer.

He waited for her to turn, the slight incline of her head allowing the loose streams of hair to fall loose on her still girlishly round cheeks. A pretty young thing with eyes as dark as a gypsy's except for the fact that she'd spent the first few years of her life with a chain-smoking mother in a council house along the North West side of the Thames. For a moment, he allowed himself the luxury of drinking in the sight of her and the sparse freckles on her bare legs, **hoping **_thinking _wondering if she was doing the same to the body hidden beneath his clothes.

On meeting them, those dark eyes, he broke off.

"Goodbye."

She nodded, or indicated that she did. It didn't matter, he was already feeling the frigid steel beneath the door handle, smelling the sharp burst of detergent and dust from the hallway, and leaving another hopeless cause behind. Seconds seemed to drop in slow motion as he made his way to the lift, a cheap aluminum cube which had seen better days, and he found it surprising that he wasn't any lower than he should feel. Maybe there was some sense in a cure lying in the occasional loveless fuck or two. He couldn't promise himself that this would be the end of it.

The doors closed behind him, barring escape for the next thirty seconds. It left him to comprehend the swirling vortex of thoughts. To be in the eye of the storm, precisely.

The only thing she and her had in common was the hard 'L' in each of their names, lolling about his tongue nicely.

Julia, Julia, Julia.

Liz, Lizzie, Elizabeth.

She was no preppy university co-ed but her voice was tinged with a soft sad melody straight out of daytime TV. Her middle name was 'Claire' and she'd sat two seats ahead of him in class. She used to wear ankle socks with pink roses embroidered around the opening and he could now count the seven freckles spread over her warm smooth legs and another on the corner of her collar-bone. She had light brown hair deepening in color at the roots and dark brown eyes lit by fireflies under the sunlight. She was Julia's inverse incarnate and, in an odd contortion of truth, he'd found that comforting.

He left the building without a rush, whispering the first song that he could muster after a hard day's night.

"Where do we go, nobody knows. I've gotta say I'm on my way... down..."

The curtains were drawn shut upstairs in a certain flat.

"God give me style and give me grace. God put a smile upon my face..."

* * *

It had been almost two months since he'd last seen her. Liz, too plain for Elizabeth and too grown-up for Lizzie, working the tables from nine to five in her butter yellow A-line uniform and slip-on shoes. The idea of her struck him as he examined a hole in his glove, the downy white stuffing spiralling to the ground. He wondered if this was a sign of something and whether it was just the tell-tale hole in his heart that was plying him with metaphors.

"Bloody Yanks."

Graham bustled into the locker-room, seeking nothing but a pair of willing ears to heap his grouses upon. "Think everything's a bloomin' WWE showdown, they do. Might as well get 'em up in spandex and capes with the way they parade around this gym..."

"They're not all that bad."

"Only because you've dated one, and look how that turned out."

"Some things aren't meant to be."

"Aye." Despite that, the older man's look was decidedly grim as he watched the pedestrians on their way home outside. "You seen that girl lately?"

"Who?"

"That one," A jab with his thumb to a building across the street. "The one you used to go to school with."

"Oh... not really."

He sighed, smiled wryly to take the sting out of it, then shrugged on his coat and took his leave. From the looks of the evening sky in August, autumn was going to be _dire_. Across the street, the café was closing down for the night. They had their tacky Holiday decorations up already. He could make out the silver and green tinsel on the countertops. Liz was out already, a coat covering her work clothes, legs encased in cream opaque tights. Her hair was falling loose from its tie and her cheeks devoid of pink. A pang of guilt stabbed at him.

"Are you alright?"

Deja vu struck him as she slowed and turned to face him, fawn eyes regarding blue. "Yeah, I'm fine."

"Liz..."

"I'm fine, Steve. Nothing's the matter..."

He managed to catch her as soon as she collapsed unconscious.

* * *

As courtesy dictated, ladies had to be escorted at all times, even if it was to waiting ambulances and hospital rooms. He had never been a fan of medical centers, especially the smell. Detergent and static reeked from every sanitized corner. Adding to that, the fake plastic Christmas tree with the tin-foil star didn't help the crippling ambiance. Rather, the attempt at spreading cheer throughout the place felt as misplaced and unrecognized as the decorations.

It was in the hallway that he waited for news, the rooms cluttered with the sounds of children wailing and pensioners complaining as harried nurses tried to dead-end their every selfish whim.

A door opened and he watched her being escorted by a smiling doctor through the door. "... hope to see you again soon, Miss Walker."

"Is everything okay?" he asked.

She kept her eyes fixed ahead, downcast beneath lashes, and strode on ahead past him. Her steps quickened as he followed, almost making him run to catch up. In her hands, she clutched a brown manila file as close as she could.

"What's wrong?"

"What, what, _what_." she mocked him, hands and voice trembling from an emotion bubbling beneath her skin. He could sense the negativity, the dread, the _fear _reverberating from her quivering shoulders to the paper falling through her fingers as she lost grip. Before she could get to them, he reached in and grabbed it first. Finger poised over the cover like a hunter and his trigger, he slid it through the glue seal, breaking and entering. Sheaves of papers on pre-natal care and tips to combat morning sickness followed. The clues put themselves together and the picture was now all too clear.

"Sorry."

"Hm." Her arms wrapped themselves around her abdomen, fighting the bitter cold. "Bit too late for that now."

* * *

"You knocked her up."

He knew that.

"So, she's decided to keep it."

She had.

"And it's due in seven months."

It was.

"You do realize that you're going to be a father before you even knew what hit you?"

He did, he did, _he did_.

"Hey." Graham delivered a sharp poke to his head, effectively bringing the reality nearer. "Didn't they teach you anything in Sex Ed?"

The leather bag hung before him, still and limp.

"I don't know."

"Too right you don't."

"I don't know how to do this." He leaned forward against the smooth surface of the worn leather, his eyes closed and head throbbing. "For God's sake, I'm not ready for this."

"Well, neither is she, I bet. You just gotta brace yourselves and roll with the punches from now on."

* * *

August, then September came and went, each one another evening spent pondering on time and its inherent fragility. If he moved too fast, he would miss the smallest wonders that he'd often taken for granted as a child. But if he went any slower, every minute crawling by would remind of growth and the tiny soon-to-be person, essentially containing part of him within its carefully concealed nexus. Autumn, in general, was a time for burying secrets in earth and hearts. Thinking of that made something flutter nervously inside his chest. The cold had never bothered him as much before.

Before Liz, before Julia, before Graham, before people and their many quirks of nature, it had been him alone. Orphans were the shadows you never knew existed unless you were born one, an invisible speck in Nobody's eye. He knew about life, death and the ugliness that each came wrapped up in. This, they had understood well. He, Hwoarang, and Julia to an extent, could all spin some stories on the nature of the ever-present darkness under the light and the gutter flowers that grew from it. Orphans, all three of them, carrying nothing but makeshift names through the endless continuum.

_"Maybe we aren't the prettiest of flowers, or the most whole of pieces. But our stems, leaves and thorns are the strength we have to survive beneath the trees with their roots and the roses with their petals. Our flaws, our mistakes, the voids we sprouted from? They gave us something to survive on, the eyes which have grown used to seeing_ through_ the dark."_

_"The world_ is _flawed, Julia. That's what makes it beautiful."_

He'd watched her bloom under Hwoarang's brown eyes, the glow of a gutter flower at heart stronger than any light he'd seen. And when it soon grew dark, Steve had slipped his hand out of hers to make way for a better beginning for both of them.

Did it hurt?

He was getting by, despite the quickly materializing proof of the errors in his methods.

Liz was where he always found her. A lonely figure by the wayside, walking in a line parallel to his. It had been cowardly of him not to talk to her after the month-old revelation, so he attempted to make amends as best as he could with the same question he often asked himself.

"How are you feeling?"

She'd been throwing up the last evening he'd visited. The door to her cramped little flat was left flung open along with the spilt bag of groceries on the mat, leaving him with nothing more than the startlingly raucous gurgles emanating from the bathroom to guide him to her. An awful sight for already tired eyes, the image of her on her side with her legs bent and hands clutching her stomach. He hadn't meant for this to happen. She, least of all, shouldn't have to suffer for his selfishness.

Liz still hadn't answered his question. But she walked slower this time, so that must mean she wasn't trying to get away from him again.

"Did you... see the doctor?"

"... Yeah."

"So... how is it?"

"It's growing. Getting bigger by the day."

He shot a glance at her, wondering if the tell-tale bump was hidden beneath the layers of clothing she'd piled on. "Does it bother you much?"

"No. Just makes me lose my appetite and keeps me up from nausea."

"I'm sorry." He'd be a millionaire by now for every pound he'd said that. "D'you want me to come with you next time?"

"It's alright, you know. Don't let me guilt-trip you into doing that."

"It's not like you're helping me out with that."

"I know."

Odd girl she was, Liz Walker. Throw her an accusation and she'd take it in her nonchalant stride. It'd been the same since their school days, "You're laughing at me, aren't you, Liz?", "You did that on purpose, didn't you, Liz?", "Look, you've gone and grazed your knees now, Liz."

_"Mm-hm.", "Yeah.", "So?"_

He liked her, he really did, and had this accident of sorts not occurred, he would have liked nothing better than to be friends. Then again, maybe a boy and girl could never be 'just friends' at any one point in their lives. Whether it ended happily, tragically or nowhere at all, _maybe _they were just bound to end up together for a time. And make accidental babies while they're at it.

"Why're you smiling to yourself like that?"

"It's a grimace, Liz."

"Uh-huh."

"It's what you do when you're caught between a laugh and a sigh."

"Well, I've had plenty of that last one. Perhaps you could me make me laugh instead."

"I'd try but I've been doing the same lately."

"Oh?" She stopped completely in her tracks, an eyebrow and a corner of her mouth raised. "You're a man, Steve. You're fully expected to shove off once the ship starts sinking."

"Do you really think that little of me?"

"No. I actually quite like you."

"... Thanks."

They stood outside the entrance to the apartment building, watching the wind scatter stray bronze and gold leaves across the unkempt lawn. Even when she tugged her jacket tighter around her and left for the paltry warmth of her room upstairs, he remained there, waiting as the last leaves descended to witness the dying days of autumn.

* * *

Six months later, he found a dead rat in the corridor of her apartment.

The next day, he made her pack up her things and move them into the spare room in his flat.

"It was just a rat." she panted irritably with one hand on her hip as she surveyed the number of boxes piled at the door. "Why'd you have to bother?"

"Last time I checked, they're filthy and spread a host of diseases. It isn't good for you. Or the baby."

"I'd use poison on them."

"You'd probably eat some of it yourself by accident..."

"What?" He suddenly found himself standing face to face with her, her cheeks flushed from either the physical exertion, annoyance or both. "I'm not stupid."

Carefully side-stepping her, he avoided her glare (rendered comically child-like) and carried the last box out. "If it helps, it would make two of us if you were."

They lapsed into an uncomfortable silence in his car, his eyes straight on the road ahead while hers darted about onto the street, lingering particularly on moving strollers and stray children loitering around the Sunday sweet sales. As an only child growing up with a single mother and absent father, she'd developed a habit of noticing happy faces. Those especially had come rare when the brightest spots in her early life came when her mother was out of the house. Now, what with her swelling bump pressing uncomfortably against her shirt, she was already questioning her abilities in taking care of someone as helpless as she often felt.

When they finally arrived, he refused to let her carry anything indoors. For once, she let it slide. Proper gentlemen were hard to come by anyway.

"Here's your room."

She stepped inside cautiously, afraid that the walls would suddenly close in and trap her inside forever. It turned out to be quite alright in the end. The sheets on the bed were clean and smelled like they hadn't been slept on in ages.

"You're welcome, Liz."

It was her turn to apologize. "Sorry. That was very ungrateful of me back there."

"Don't mention it."

"Steve... thank you. Really, I mean it. No sarcasm this time."

"S'alright."

He walked away from her carefully, slow steps that seemed to linger on the carpet with each motion. As if he suddenly realized that she'd noticed, he came to a halt with his back towards her. With the year drawing to a close, a new beginning was creeping nearer and nearer, so close that it threatened to fall over them unnoticed.

"It's funny though," he started, hands fumbling in his pockets. "What do you do at home, except wait until that day comes?"

"Nothing much. Um... actually, I do. I've been thinking."

"Me too."

"About names."

Something faint but definitely tinted with red snuck into the skin around his jawline. She wasn't sure why or how it got there but it made him look rather adorable nonetheless.

"You have, eh?"

"Yep."

"What've you got then?"

"Adele, Agnes, Aida, Alice, Amy, Anna, Audrey." She needed to sit down now. Her ankles were _killing_ her. "I decided to start in alphabetical order. Just to make time go faster."

"Those are all girls' names."

"Maybe you could try the same for a boy. Begin at the beginning. Did you like any of them, by the way? The ones I thought of?"

"Yeah, they sounded good. Maybe not Anna personally but... they could work."

"So, think about some for a boy, would you?" she asked hesitatingly, shyly and slowly.

"I'll do that." He was nodding, back on his way out. "Think I'll start from 'Z' and meet you halfway in the middle. Let's see, we have Zack, Zeke... Zohan?"

She allowed herself a giggle once he'd left.

* * *

Graham had an entirely different view on the subject.

"As long as it's not 'Dean'. Just... ugh, no Deans, a'right?"

* * *

The day had started off ordinarily enough. He had woken up early, listened to Liz hum an Oasis tune in the shower (an acquired taste), chugged down a mug of dark bitter coffee and a bowl of the granola she'd made last evening, then left for the familiar refuge of the gym. He'd had his share of previous relationships before her but he'd never actually lived with a woman. Let alone one he wasn't involved 'seriously' in. Three months and two weeks had passed on without so much as a warning sign.

Around noon, he checked his mobile for any messages or missed calls. There were none.

At three, his muscles were practically screaming in pain but he still managed to summon enough energy to flip open the phone and glance at the screen.

Nothing.

At four o'clock, he switched it off to preserve precious battery power.

At four thirty, Graham's rough poke to the ribs woke him up. He'd fallen asleep on one of the locker-room benches.

"Bloody hell, did you just hear what I said?!"

"Wha - ?"

"It's time!"

"Time for what?"

Graham smacked his forehead, obviously frustrated. "He's asking me, fancy! Liz's been trying to get to you for the past half hour!"

Oh...

... fuck.

Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh bloody fuck...

He leapt off the bench and landed face-first into an open locker door.

"Oh, for Christ's sake, I'll drive you there before you get yourself killed first."

He vaguely remembered being propped up by Graham and bundled into the older man's battered old clunker of car, such was the loudness of the bells ringing in his head. A one night stand leads to nine months of expectations weighed down with uneasiness and cold spells of silence which eventually, inevitably, leads to the years ahead, chock full of uncertainty. It was happening, it really was happening. He didn't know whether he should laugh or cry at the unknown space he was supposed to dive headlong into.

"Steve? Come on, now. Come on, get a grip on yourself, boy..."

Boy? Oh, Graham must mean him. Indeed, he felt more boy than man at the moment, poised to run at the first spark of doom. But he couldn't escape this time, there was no way out of the mess he'd help dig and so he was _supposed _to stay put and calm for as long he was needed because this just _had _to be one of those rare moments where someone did need him and oh no, where was he supposed to be right now...

"Are you the father?" A frizzy-haired doctor appeared before him, scrutinizing his living comatose figure for all it was worth.

"Yes." Graham answered for him, then shoved him forward to the awaiting delivery room. "Good luck."

Starched blue scrubs, jagged neon lines across monitors, footsteps and strange voices clattering all around him, wires crisscrossing every time he turned to regain his bearings, and then there was Liz.

Liz, tears streaming down her cheeks, clutching madly at the sides of the bed, sobbing faintly, making him remember that he hated seeing people cry, especially the prettiest girls.

"Help keep her head down, dear."

With one quaking hand, he did as the nurse told, keeping his own head down and trying not to yell out loud. And then the screaming began, and the shouting, and the pushing, and her back arching as she cried out louder, and his wrist being encircled in a tight embrace by her fingers, and his vision blurring from all the oxygen this chaos was depriving his brain of, and then what on earth was that popping out at the other end of her hips?

That... _thing_, purple, mottled, slimy and shrieking in fury at the top of its tiny lungs...

"It's a boy. Congratulations." The doctor smiled briefly before whisking their son away, the little lad still bawling on for anyone who cared to hear. "Sounds fit as a fiddle. We'll hand him over in a minute."

"Are you alright?" Liz asked him, probably since he could barely stand without supporting much of his weight on the headboard. "You look pale."

How strange. He'd been asking her that very same question for the past few months.

"You're trembling too. Should I call the doctor to check on you as well?"

"... How'd you do that? How in the world did you get through that?"

She only smiled in return. "Sorry about your wrist."

He had barely noticed the red marks forming on his skin. Soon enough, the doctor returned with a now silent bundle wrapped in warm white cotton and placed it gently into an exhausted new mother's arms.

"He's asleep already. Already tired out from all the excitement, I presume. Have you got a name for him yet?"

Liz glanced up at him, eyes at half-mast. "Your call, Dad."

He, in turn, looked down at the small puffy face in the midst of the comfortable circle her arms made, the eyes closed and chest rising with each steady, even breath. Recalling that beginnings were supposed to start at the beginning, he thought back to the very last name on his list.

"Aaron."

She nodded sleepily, satisfied with his choice. "That's nice. Suits him well. Aaron..."

"Yeah, that's our boy. Aaron."

* * *

Outside in the waiting-room, Graham did take the news with some discontent.

"I know it's not 'Dean', congrats and all, but the least you could have done was name him after me..."

* * *

As Steve found out soon, Aaron didn't just cry.

He roared.

Night after night, it became a well-established routine. Babies were supposed to settle into one after about three months and Aaron had decided that a colicky temperament was best aired out during the wee hours of morning. More often than not, Steve found himself waking up to the merry melody of his son's wailing and Liz's frantic attempts at lulling him to sleep from across the hall in the same flat they still shared.

"He's not hungry, I just changed him and he hasn't got a temperature, so where am I going wrong?" she moaned, almost on the verge of more tears. "Do something, would you?"

His own eyes itched from lack of sleep but the desperate tone in her voice troubled him. He peeked over the side of the crib, just in time to catch a whimper from its sole occupant. Holding his breath, he reached in carefully, placing his hands around the little warm body. Unfortunately, Aaron must have caught wind of the plot to send him to slumber for he immediately chose that moment to wreak his vengeance in the form of an ear-splitting howl while splaying his chubby limbs at the same time. In its wake, Steve was left cowering behind the wooden bars and wondering at the infant who was beginning to resemble an angry red starfish in blue rompers.

"Oh, you're just as useless. Go!"

He found himself banished to the lonely hall, properly ashamed at not being to help any more.

Over the next few months, the crying gradually lessened. Another August, another month of cloud-filled skies and rainy afternoons. That last one, he would automatically find his place at the window during those times, thinking that Aaron's eyes were quite the same shade of blue behind the looming grey puffs up there. Whilst the colic had disappeared, he had taken to babbling away to anything and nothing in particular. This afternoon, it was an empty plastic peanut-butter jar he'd taken a shine to.

"You know, you're actually quite nice when you're not crying." Liz murmured softly to him from her place on the rug. Recognizing the dulcet notes of his mother's voice, Aaron squirmed slightly and tried to stretch out in her direction. "Are you trying to turn, dear? There, there, gently now..."

Maybe it was the rain, the soft buzz of the heater, or Liz's soft smile at Aaron's antics, but Steve couldn't deny the warmth seeping out from the picture painted before his jaded eyes. He pursed his lips and let out a high whistle. A pair of blue eyes that looked like they could have been cut from a summer sky fluttered open, accompanied by a toothless yet still dazzling grin and another delighted coo. The immediate attention switch didn't pass unnoticed by Liz.

"He likes you, he really does."

"It's good timing, that's all."

"Ah." She lay down beside Aaron, on her side. "I think I might actually look forward to Christmas this year. We could put up a tree and give Aaron a present."

The idea had never crossed his mind. Yuletide celebrations had been restricted to him greeting Graham at twelve and listening to the ensuing reply of "Bah! Humbug." in return. When he was younger, he'd never had to think about presents since he'd never gotten any from a doting parent. Instead, he would contend with tracing the patterns in each snowflake that fell on his worn-out trainers. The snowflakes were pretty enough. It was just that they would always disappear on impact like everything else that he laid a hand upon. Snow often reminded him of the impermanence of his life. Glorious victories and first loves were usually the first to be claimed by the shadows.

But the pictures before him, the dreams he was _living_ in, the slight rumble of Aaron's belly as he tickled it, the melodic chime of his son's laughter, the genuine hint in the gleam of Liz's dark eyes, the achingly real warmth coursing through every fiber of his being, it all assured him that these were here to stay.

Perhaps not forever. But long enough for the memory to linger was fine.

"I can't wait either."

A tiny young hand wrapped its fingers around one of his own.

"And look who agrees with us too..."

* * *

Two hundred and fifty stars, and counting...

Nothing but the eerie lap of small waves against stone bricks filling his ears.

It had been twenty odd years since he'd last set foot here. His legs dangled a few feet above the water and cliched analogies involving boats and destinations drifted through his imagination.

Two hundred and seventy stars, and counting...

An unusually clear night, city lights floating off their reflections in the water like the infamous ten million fireflies haunting the day's radio-waves. He was ten years old when he first heard 'London Calling', old enough to latch onto a certain phrase that contained no deep meaning whatsoever. 'London, London, London Calling', classic rock streaming past the cracks created by mainstream pop. The violins crooning a 'Bittersweet Symphony' and a mournful baritone announcing the arrival of 'This Charming Man'. The docks which reeked of rotting wood and sea water were the backdrop to his life's soundtrack, where the beauty lay in the sweeping monotony of the surroundings.

Three hundred stars, and stop.

He got up before his own ship could be lost at sea.

The further he walked back, the softer the waves sounded until they finally diminished themselves into the bustling lullaby of another night. Ever since Aaron had started to walk, his favorite song had been 'Boys of Summer', some tune by a singer Steve wasn't a fan of. Still, it was the perfect one for a boy with eyes that could have been cut from the sky. It sometimes perturbed him that the kid could contain so much of himself in the littlest details, from the golden tints in otherwise soft brown hair to the calm swift gait that slowed to an almost halt in the midst of dawning inspiration.

A fresh tune straight off the charts buzzed through a white ear-piece from a bobbing head he passed. He could practically smell summer around the corner, clean wet sand and bonfire nights. Fairy lights danced in a certain little boy's eyes, branding another sight into his father's as they watched the flames leap higher and higher for the full moon.

Slowly and surely, his memory was failing him. His heart was forgetting a particular pain that had once resided therein. Vestiges of a five year old summer day would tug at his strings when he felt quite alone but these too were eroding gradually. He hadn't forsaken the past entirely, but the mysteries of the present were a new type of wonder. Summer was quickening her pace, he could even feel the vibrations of the fresh breeze in his bones and the key turning in the lock.

The aroma was what got him as soon as he entered. Herbs and fresh tomato sauce.

And a downy head popping up from behind the couch in the living room.

"Hey, Dad!"

He would've answered in time were it not for the blur of perpetual motion that flung itself at him, knocking the outdoor cold of the lonely harbor clean out of him.

"Aaron..."

"What took you so long? We were waiting here all night long!"

"Sorry." But that didn't stop the broad grin from appearing. "I took a walk along the river and got lost along the way."

"That's silly." Aaron was four going on fourteen. "You could've followed the signs back home."

"Yeah, you're right. That was rather silly of me not to at first..."

He was momentarily distracted by the sound of steel meeting wood and the disarmingly feminine lilt in the song wafting in from the kitchen.

"It's alright, I s'pose. It's not like you knew any better." A thoughtful cloud passed through the precocious youngster's eyes, his shoulders momentarily drooping from the weight in them. "It's not like grown-ups behave any better than kids sometimes."

"Tell me about it. You're quite the observer."

"That's what Graham told me today."

_Oh no._

"So you talked with Graham today?"

"Yeah." The clouds lifted to reveal the most genuinely cheery smile in the whole wide world, so unlike his own that Steve didn't bother disguising the delight rushing through him. "He's got himself a new aquarium with new fish inside it and guess what? I get to name some of them!"

"_Got _to name them." The voice in the kitchen corrected.

"I _got _to name them." Aaron carried on, regardless. "And you know what they were?"

"Steve the Clownfish?" He offered politely with his chin on his palms. "Lizzie the Sardine?"

"Excuse me?" The singing ceased immediately as Liz - Never Lizzie - poked her head in.

"Nothing."

Aaron frowned, a single crease appearing between his eyebrows.

"Those are silly. I gave them proper names."

"As in?"

"Liam and Noel. They're Siamese Fighting Fish. And Brandon the Goldfish."

Liz snorted, then went back to the chopping board. "Figures. You can tell he's our son. The other kids go around singing stuff by The Wiggles while Aaron listens to Oasis and Incubus."

"That's what I'd call cool if I were his age." Unable to stand the temptation any longer, he succumbed and followed the steam rising from the pot on the stove. "By the way, I never liked Oasis. Liam Gallagher will forever haunt me whenever I happen to be at a country fair where the closest record to modern they have playing is 'Wonderwall'."

"Well, I like them." A toss of her light brown locks emphasized her point as she reached past him for a ladle. "And by the way, I can't stand Incubus either."

"One good reason, Liz. _One _good reason."

"They remind you of your old girlfriend. Happy?"

"Huh?"

"When we first met..." Watching Aaron carefully pick through his plate of spaghetti, she lowered her voice. "When we first met, after you came back from that tournament, all you ever listened to was 'Love Hurts'. Sometimes 'Southern Girl' if you felt like it but... don't you remember?"

"... I do."

He wasn't lying. Truth, on the other hand, was far from it.

All he knew was that he could be repeating the same mistake, falling into the same trap which had left him floundering for clean air years ago.

"Mum?"

"Yes?"

"Graham was getting pretty angry because two of his angelfish were 'going at it' behind the treasure chest. He said he'd had enough of everyone trying to make babies all the time. Where did I come from anyway?"

Steve resolved to limit Graham's babysitting duties to the absolute minimum.

"You came from me. And your Dad. That's why you have my hair," She ran a hand fondly through his silken strands. "And his eyes."

"And how'd that happen?"

Instant rewind, a hollow night, a worse morning after. Loneliness, wanderlust, cowardliness, shared fear of the unexpected, changes that were aimed and shot as fast as arrows to the heart. Past heartaches, emotions on the wire, tipping dangerously towards the extremes. Several moments strung together with one thread to tie them together.

He was forgetting tree-brown eyes and replacing them with a fawn's.

"It usually happens when you're in love with someone."

And she was supposed to have been as permanent as the colors in a rainbow.

Liz... Liz... Liz...

A conscious sidelong glance from those eyes before him and he could see the sun through the grey clouds.

With steady hands, he cupped her face and leaned in.

It had been long overdue after all.

_Warmer than warm, yeah._

The kiss broke as soon as they realized the ill timing of the moment.

"Does this mean I'm getting a new brother or sister for Christmas this year?"

"Aaron!"

* * *

"So, that's that."

There were certain women whose beauty not even time could mar. Nina Williams, blonde, ocean-eyed and blue-blooded, could lay claim to the highest ranking throne and title. Steve watched his mother carefully from across the room. A lithe supple figure shrouded in paper-thin white fabric like a real-life queen of a winter underground, her skewed regality surpassed all limits. Even during the days she had declared as her last.

"A strange sequence of events. And yet, you've finally got what you wanted. Family, comfort, love. Oh joy."

"Contrary to science, lightning does strike twice. Even in the most unlikely places."

She shifted slightly in her place by the fire, hands wound round a bone-china cup. The crockery was from her late mother's set, the hands from her father. The iron-hard, blood-clotted hands of a merciless reaper in disguise. Meant to kill, not to care.

"Of course, you'd expect me to know about science. Twenty years spent cooped up in that cryogenic chamber should have taught me a thing or two. That's how I ended up..."

Her arm flopped weakly over her lap. "... Like this."

He remained silent. The lack of cheer suited this old manor house to perfection. This was the last remaining remnant of his lost past, the house where his grandfather had raised his brood of soon-to-be-rival assassins. His mother and her sister had lived, breathed, trained and fought viciously under this very same roof. The quiet echoed only of pain and vengeance. Never a drop of human affection.

"You're quite lucky, Steven. You got away when you were born."

True, he had been a failed experiment. He'd been dumped on the streets and left to fight his own path through the world.

"Never had those chemicals and serums foisted into your veins to keep you alive and pretty. Never had to live in an endless dream, never had to revisit your memories in nightmares..."

"Shut up."

"There now, that isn't the way to address your parent. You wouldn't have Aaron saying that, would you? How old is he now?"

His lips hurt from keeping them closed so tightly.

"You honestly think I'd lay a hand on my own grandson? My _grandson_, imagine that." A faint, fake smile drew up her parchment cheeks. "Time does fly when you're having fun..."

"... He's six."

"When I was six, I got lost in a valley. A couple miles from here." She nodded towards the window from where he could see the stretch of rolling emerald countryside he'd traversed to get to the place. "It took a while for anyone to find me, being so small and all. Ever been through a night so dark that you couldn't see your hand in front of you? That's how it often was, even when it wasn't the valleys I was lost in. Ever felt like that before?"

If he did, he wasn't telling.

"I don't know how long I was gone. A few days, maybe a week. It rained twice so I never went thirsty, that's certain."

"Is there a point to this?"

"I thought I made that clear in the letter I sent."

His fists clenched around his knees. "You know I don't care for any of this. The house, the property, none of it."

"But you still came."

No matter how long he gazed into the crackling embers of the coal fire, he couldn't understand it himself.

The china cup so resembled a sliver of ivory in her hand, the bones in it so gnarled that each knuckle almost tore through the withered skin when she curled her fingers in. He could see the imperfections that cracked through the porcelain beauty, every blue-green vein straining to stream its contents, every cell in her battered body breathing its last. Even the ice in the ocean pools of her eyes were melting. Bit by stony bit, she was crumbling, the mighty was falling, the winter was thawing and soon the bells would chime, singing 'Ding-dong, the witch is dead'...

"I had to kill a rabbit to survive out there. It was just a baby learning to fear men. It didn't think that I would do it any harm so it came to me when I called. But I did, I did, I took a rock to its head like it was nothing but a pestle to a mortar..."

The rivers began to flow, carving inches down her cheeks and jaw, her strangled cries drowned out by the eternal silence that haunted the fortress she had to call home. It was a most horrible funereal dirge, one which would fall on no one else's ears when the Styx and blue flames of the Underworld would finally close in on her. Out of pity, he took the cup from her, set it down, and then took his leave, knowing that he would never return.

It almost hurt to step back out into the winter sunlight. Every exhalation of his materialized in a wispy white puff of smoke before him. Snow was set to fall in the next few days, encasing every living pop of color in cold frosted sheets.

_"You're quite lucky..."_

"I'm very lucky." He agreed.

Far ahead, the road stretched onwards, curling and winding around the dew-washed Irish countryside. Pink, yellow and blue flowers dotted the grass like abandoned sweet wrappers. The letter still lay crumpled at the bottom of his pocket. In the other, his mobile vibrated.

"Hello?"

"Hey, Dad! How's Dublin?"

"I've had better times." A shadow fell upon him. Eyes glancing up, he recognized the storm cloud. "In fact, I think I'd rather be at home with you. What're you up to, anyway?"

"I just finished writing to Sunny. She drew me a picture of her last time so I thought I'd draw one of me. By the way, what color's my hair? My eyes are easy to draw 'cause they're only blue but my hair looks different all the time. Sometimes it's brown and then it goes this funny sort of yellow when I'm in the sun. Why's that?"

"Your hair sounds pretty indecisive to me. Maybe we should just go and dye it a different color altogether." He paused, settling on a particular shade in his mind. "Maybe red."

"No way."

"Well then, maybe your hair needs some more time to figure out what color it wants to be. You know, when it's older..."

"Da-_ad_." He had to stop himself from laughing out loud this time. The things that children took so seriously. "You're _really _annoying when you and Mum talk about growing up all the time. When am I going to be old enough?"

"I honestly hope that day never comes."

"Why?"

"Because who am I going to fly airplanes and splash puddles with? And who am I going to have to protect from hungry sheepdogs from down the street? Not to mention, who's going to keep me company when it's raining and we're stuck indoors all day?"

Over the line, Aaron laughed. A pure clean ring of mirth. "I'd still fly airplanes with you even when I grow up. And anyway, you were right about the dog. His name's Charlie and he only wants to be friends."

"Glad to hear that. What's that I hear playing?"

"Little by Little."

"Not Oasis again?"

"They're not that bad, actually. You should try listening to them."

"Only if your mother lets me listen to 'Southern Girl' with the volume turned up."

"Not gonna happen." A new voice chimed in. "Unless you let me do the same with 'Wonderwall'."

"Over Liam Gallagher's drug-infested dead body, I definitely would."

"That'd be the day. Probably when you finally make an honest woman out of me too." Liz replied demurely, not without a trace of humor.

He played along with faux innocence. "A sheet of paper doesn't have to be the final say in the matter, _dear_. Besides, I thought you hated it when your grandmother used to drag you to church on Sundays."

"Oh, _you_." Cue the eye-roll moment, he figured. "How'd it go with your mother, if I may ask?"

In the distance, he could hear the low growl of thunder.

"She hasn't got much long left."

"Ouch. Are you alright there?"

"Yeah, don't worry. We weren't that close. I don't think she ever loved me anyway."

"I wish I was there." A drop of water splashed down onto his cheek and trickled down his collar. "With you, I mean. You sound like you could use a hug."

"I could..."

The downpour arrived, cool and soothing. Rain was a wonderful thing for cleansing. Dirt, sins, tears, it didn't hold back. He'd been stuck in a grey room for too long to entirely forget what sorrow could feel like. But the light had crept through the tiniest of holes made for mice along with the songs of spring breaking the spell of winter's silence. He stood for a while, taking in the sights and sounds, with the warmth of her breath penetrating the distance between them.

There was water pooling around his feet. He would build a bridge to take him back to safer shores, where the image of a little blue-eyed boy twirled a paper plane between his delicate young fingers.

"I'll tell you all about it instead when I get home. Wait for me, would you?"

_Keep your arms open for me._

_Keep your heart free for me._

_Keep a little prayer saved for me._

Down the path, he ran all the way.


End file.
